The Veil

Devil's Isle Series, Book 1

By: Chloe Neill

Narrated by: Amy Landon

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

Claire Connolly is a good girl with a dangerous secret: She's a Sensitive, a human endowed with magic that seeped through the Veil. Claire knows that revealing her skills would mean being confined to Devil's Isle. Unfortunately, hiding her power has left her untrained and unfocused. Liam Quinn knows from experience that magic makes monsters of the weak, and he has no time for a Sensitive with no control of her own strength. But when he sees Claire using her powers to save a human under attack - in full view of the French Quarter - Liam decides to bring her to Devil's Isle and the teacher she needs, even though getting her out of his way isn't the same as keeping her out of his head. As more and more Sensitives fall prey to their magic and unleash their hunger on the city, Claire and Liam must work together to save New Orleans, or else the city will burn.

©2015 Chloe Neill (P)2015 Tantor

Jury is still out..

I love the Chicagoland Vampires.

The Veil however seemed a little uncohesive and I found I was rewinding to check I hadn't missed something. Obviously the start of a serial, the story finished with more to say but it could stand on it's own as well.
I think it was possibly the narration that was a bit lack lustre so didn't engage me as much as the story could have. That being said it wasn't terrible by a long stretch with good male and female voices.
The jury is still out but after a second listen it may improve and the next book will be a little more together now that we know the characters a bit.
Not a waste of a credit at all.

Okay but not great...

I have read and enjoyed Neill’s Chicagoland Vampire series so I was excited to hear about her new Devil’s Isle series. It sounded like an interesting premise and I always enjoy storylines involving fey. It ended up being an okay book but not great. For some reason the story just seemed a little tired and boring to me.

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was okay. Some of the male voices were stiff and cold sounding, especially Liam’s voice. I had a hard time telling if it was the speech patterns and/or writing that made Liam sound stiff and cold, or if it was the narration. Either way this wasn’t my favorite audiobook but it was okay.

I thought the idea of the Veil was incredibly interesting. Claire is okay as a character, but I wasn’t totally engaged with her...she was just a bit too vanilla even with her Sensitive abilities. Liam was also an okay character but I never engaged with him all that well either; he was just so distant and cold.

The world is intriguing. Basically the people in this book have decided to stay in New Orleans despite the post-apocalyptic lifestyle to the area. While I found this interesting I also had a lot of trouble finding it believable and viable. I mean if the rest of the country had food, supplies, and technology why would sequester yourself in this little pocket of poverty and sparsity? I didn’t get it and thought it was weird how isolated the story was; we really don’t have a good idea what’s happening in the world outside New Orleans. Additionally I am not a huge fan of New Orleans personally, so I wasn’t crazy about the story being set there. I do understand that this is probably meant to echo New Orleans post-Katrina struggles, but I just didn’t dig it.

Overall this was an okay book but not great. I liked the idea of the Veil but didn’t find the world or characters all that engaging or interesting. There is quite a bit of action in this book but somehow it still felt tired and boring to me. I won’t be reading future books in this series and wouldn’t recommend it. I think Neill’s Chicagoland series has also taken a turn for the worse in the last couple books; I am not sure if Neill’s writing style is shifting or if I am just growing out of it.

Excellent!

I can't wait for more! I have enjoyed the Chicago vampire stories but this new series is even better!

The Veil

This paranormal story takes place in a post modern New Orleans. Red headed Claire runs a small convenience store. Liam enters Claire's life after she tries to protect a stranger from wraiths. Claire has other close friends- not all human - who help her foil a plot to reopen the door between the real world and the magical world.
Chloe Neill's New Orleans based story looks like it will be a series to look forward to.

Great Story. Performance was Okay

This is a well designed Universe set in the near dystopian future in New Orleans. The setting of NOLA is becoming a bit tired with regard to the Supernatural writings of Ms. Neill's peers.

I have read plenty of Supernatural novels. I prefer ones that do not dive into the bedroom scene's ad nauseum. Amy is tasteful and did not really indulge in this book.

The heroine is very believable and all her relationships are strong. I like this. You will get a glimpse of other locations for potential Story expansion and characters who will draw you back to the series.

Surprisingly, the audio performance was not great. There were several times a description of the emotion was provided, but the reader did not put the inflection into the phrase being read. A few big misses here.

Regardless, a fun listen/read. Enjoy!

The story just kinda plods along... and on and on

What did you like best about The Veil? What did you like least?

The point I just gave up and stopped listening...

What was most disappointing about Chloe Neill’s story?

Nothing in the story grabbed my attention... Just kinda weak....

What three words best describe Amy Landon’s voice?

variation quality constancy

Did The Veil inspire you to do anything?

To think twice about listening to anything else from this author.

Book was mediocre and the narrator didn't help.

The plot of this book felt too easy. A stumbling block was introduced, and then quickly and effectively handled. More than once, the character learned about something and showed up just in time to stop the bad guys. It was a new take on magic, which was great, but it was never really gripping.

The narrator was bad. She was more or less fine for the main character's voice, but her intonation never really varied. It was difficult to distinguish between character voices. There was no sass, no energy in the dialogue. All of the flirtation between the protagonists felt flat. Honestly, I'm not sure if the narration was a reflection of the story or if the story felt so "meh" because of the narration. I almost turned it off after the first hour and gave up. My husband and I routinely listen to Audiobooks on car trips, and this one just wasn't doing a decent job of keeping us awake.

Okay But Will Skip the Rest of the Series

The story had great descriptive detail but too many characters and not enough depth to any of them. The narrator was okay but the main male character (Liam) spoke waayyyyyyy too slowly. I will not put this author on my must read list.

Good narrator

I think I've read waaaay to many paranormal books to be a fair judge. Narrator Amy Landon did a good job but the storyline was nothing new to me. I would however recommend this for teens.

Great book and narrator.!

Will be reading more books by Chloe Neil. Loved the storyline and narrator was awesome!